Taiwanese cheerleaders refused entry at Beijing airport

While protesters and journalists who are currently in China are being watched, held or manhandled[1], two Taiwanese cheerleaders who just wanted to cheer for the Taiwanese athletes were refused entry at Beijing airport and forced to return to Taiwan.[2][3] They supported the DPP candidate, Frank Hsieh, during the presidential election this year. These individuals had the right travel documents, did not bring any of our national symbols, which may ‘provoke’ China, and only wanted to cheer for Taiwanese players.

When they were in Beijing airport, they were taken somewhere else for questioning for about an hour. The authority went through all their personal belongings, mobile phone call lists and text messages and kept their luggage and travel documents. The only reason for the refusal given by the authority was “higher ups had ordered” that they were sent back immediately.

The sad thing is that Ma’s government and the ruling party did not show support or tried to protect them when it happened. A KMT lawmaker, Ma’s close ally, Wu, Yu-Sheng, said that they ‘asked for it’.[4] Not only did he not show any support or condemn the Chinese government, he sided with the Chinese government and accused the cheerleaders of talking to the press before travel and being provocative. Well, what do we need a government for?

If the relation between China and Taiwan has really improved, why would such a thing happen? It seems that ‘peace’ and ‘good relation’ can only exist if the others totally agree with them. To create the illusion of peace and stability, the Chinese government just excludes or punishes anyone who does not agree with them rather than making any genuine changes.

When the world perceives this vast improvement in the relation between China and Taiwan, it is mostly some under table agreements between KMT and the Chinese government rather than genuine mutual respect between both countries. The relationship now is too one sided, as Taiwanese are not respected. KMT does not seem to care about whether Taiwanese are respected or not, which the majority of Taiwanese are deeply unhappy about. A lot of people now suspect that Ma is secretly moving towards unification with China although he has always denied it.

As I said in my previous post ‘Taiwan is NOT happy with new president’, Taiwanese people would not mind improving our relation with China but it has to be done with dignity and without compromising our sovereignty. Taiwanese elected Ma to improve the economy rather than making a mess with the Taiwanese economy and kowtowing or even surrendering to China.

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Taiwan, also known as Formosa, is NOT part of China. The majority of the population see themselves as Taiwanese, NOT Chinese. Taiwan is a democracy and therefore people there do not wish to be ruled by China, a dictatorship with poor human rights record and about 2,000 missiles aiming at Taiwan.